Table of Contents

Issue Date: Monday, April 28, 2014

The average funding ratio for the 100 largest U.S. corporate defined benefit plans jumped to 93.5% in 2013 — more than 10 percentage points higher than the previous two years and the highest since 2007, according to Pensions & Invest­ments' annual analysis of corporate SEC filings.

Global money managers are looking to bolster their multiasset and diversified growth funds expertise in a bid to capture increased interest in the asset class and an anticipated boost to allocations from defined contribution plans.

Some Madison Dearborn Partners LLC investors might take a hit on the firm's investment in money manager Nuveen Investments — which it is selling to TIAA-CREF for $6.25 billion — but many are not going to abandon the firm just yet.

Three stable value fund managers have this year lifted “soft closes” that prevented investments from most or all new clients, moves seen illustrating the continued strengthening of the stable value market.

Real estate fund administration might lag other alternatives back-office providers in terms of assets, but rising allocations in real estate and REITs by asset owners could send assets under administration in the sector skyrocketing in the near future.

BlackRock Inc.'s new license to invest directly in China's capital markets could prove a key to fending off increasingly fierce competition for the A-share exchange-traded fund business the giant New York money manager pioneered a decade ago.

Money management firms in China this year are seeing an Internet-fueled flood of assets into money market funds from a new generation of investors, a potential game changer in a region where people continue to keep the vast bulk of their savings locked in low-yielding bank deposits.

Detroit's 100,000 public employees will get a much better pension deal after negotiators for Detroit's two pension funds and the Retired Detroit Police and Fire Fighters Association bargained hard for days and nights over the city's proposed bankruptcy recovery plan.

Institutional investors were much more active hedge fund investors in 2013 than in the prior year, racking up a net total of $10.7 billion of investments, searches and terminations — a 16.7% growth rate.

Even though pension funds and other tax-exempt institutional asset pools don't pay taxes on their investment income, the taxes paid by the companies in their investment portfolios should concern institutional investors.

When looking at the situation from 10,000 feet, there might be reason to suspect some unethical conduct occurred with Pershing Square Capital Management LP's purchase of shares and options totaling 9.7% of Allergan Inc.